ORRIN HATCH

War Whore Ingraham played a clip of Sen. Hatch speaking against curtailing our involvement in Iraq and wished that more Republicans would fight back. Here's a bit of his statement¹ that Laura neglected to play:

SEN. HATCH: Other dire mistakes were made.

Many of those errors can be directly attributed to the decisions made by the Coalition Provisional Authority which originated from or were ratified by the senior civilian leadership at the Pentagon at the time. This includes the decision to disband the Iraqi Army without providing alternative means for the employing and sustaining of its former members. These former Iraqi soldiers went on to become the foundation of the initial insurgency. We might have been able to prevent that had we chosen another route.

Another mistake was the decision to eliminate the first three levels of leadership, not only in Government ministries but hospitals, universities, and Government-run corporations. Managers, no matter how junior, who were members of Saddam Hussein's Baathist Party were removed. The result was those who had the managerial experience best suited to rebuild Iraq's institutions were arbitrarily dismissed, even if they had not played any role in Saddam's atrocities.

In sum, many of the problems we confront today are as a result of our own shortsightedness and the administration's failure to fully and comprehensively develop and execute a plan for stabilization of Iraq after the fall of the Saddam regime.

¹ CONGRESSIONAL RECORD -- SENATE
Thursday, March 15, 2007
110th Congress, 1st Session
153 Cong Rec S 3158
REFERENCE: Vol. 153, No. 45
SECTION: Senate
TITLE: IRAQ
SPEAKER: Mrs. HUTCHISON; Mr. HATCH
TEXT: [*S3158]